A Different Kind of Compulsion
by InDiGo MaRcH
Summary: Struggling to control an annoying onslaught of human emotion, Klaus finds himself unable to resist the urge to make things right with Caroline. ONESHOT; post 3x15


**Disclaimer: **Rest assured, if I were the genius behind TVD, there would be less Dalenafan drama and much more Klaroline wonderfulness :3

**A/N: **MY EMOTIONS—I CAN'T—KLAROLINE—asdjljflasjgfdas

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**A Different Kind of Compulsion**

**A Vampire Diaries ONE-SHOT**

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Frustrated and pissed off and enveloped with the unfamiliar feeling of being crushed, Klaus impulsively decided to take out all his pent up rage on his art. He stormed around the room, tearing paintings down from the walls, ripping through sketchpads, smashing vases and windows and anything and everything made of glass, shoving books off their shelves, shattering lights. Everything was going wrong; everything was falling apart. His brothers—Elijah, Kol, Finn—gone, his mother, Esther. All that was left was this empty house and Rebekah, just Rebekah—

He froze, his hand outstretched toward the blazing fire that roared furiously in the grate, one last sketchpad still intact, clenched tightly in his fist and lit up by the light of the flames

Caroline.

Why Caroline?

He pulled the pad away from the fire, slowly, opening it with careful deliberation to examine his drawings of her, an odd feeling settling into the very pit of his stomach as he lightly traced the sketch of her face with the tips of his fingers.

These feelings, these emotions, disarmed him. He didn't know how to control himself; just being around Caroline made him feel vulnerable, beyond his own thoughts, making him unpredictable in a way that worried him, but excited him at the same time. He was captivated by this stubborn, snarky and quick-witted young woman. She despised everything he was, yet somehow had still managed to see the man—whatever was left of him—that night, right here, in this very same room. She saw past the cocky arrogance; saw his weakness, his inability to trust, to love.

And it…hurt. It hurt that he felt this way about Caroline, and it worried him that he seemed unable to block these feelings, to turn off that destructive part of humanity, even with this anger he was feeling towards her over Kol's daggering.

Klaus tucked the sketchpad under his arm, gave the demolished room one last bitter glower, before retreating from it, throwing open the doors so forcefully they splintered as they crashed against the walls.

"Still being an overly dramatic tossa, I see," Rebekah remarked as he stalked up the hall and right past where she stood leaning against the wall.

"Not now, little sister," he responded shortly without pause, "I have no patience for trivial chit chat with you this morning."

"Aw," she pouted, pushing herself from the wall to fall into step beside him. When he continued to ignore her, the pout turned into a scowl. "Must I ask what the matter is? You know how I hate pretending to care, brother," she reminded him smugly, swinging around to watch his face as she added a perky little bounce to her step.

"Run along, then, Bekah," Klaus retorted impatiently. "Don't you have social lives to devastate at that petty little school of yours?"

She popped him provokingly beneath the chin. "Enough of your incessant moping, brother; it doesn't suit your face."

Klaus angled his head away from the offending hand and fixed her with a steely glare, his characteristically pissed expression falling into place as his nostrils flared ever so slightly.

Rolling her eyes, Rebekah lifted her hands impatiently. "I'm going, all right?" Shaking her head in annoyance, she disappeared in a rapid blur of movement, her departure from view swiftly followed by the distant slamming of the front door.

Klaus kept still in the middle of the hallway, drumming his fingers restlessly on top of the sketchpad he held. These human emotions that were suddenly bottled up inside him, expanding and nagging at him, were becoming increasingly Caroline-oriented. That hurt, panicked look that had settled on her face when he grabbed her the night of Kol's daggering stuck out in his mind no matter how hard he tried to shove it out again.

He simply could not resist the irritatingly human urge to make things right with her. And with that single thought burning persistently through his mind, he found himself standing on her porch mere minutes later at a complete standstill, for the first time in his long life carefully pondering over what he would say when she'd open the door and find him fidgeting like a love struck idiot on the welcome mat.

When the door finally did swing open, she came to an abrupt stop, hovering just inside the door's frame, her eyebrows lifting in surprise at his unexpected appearance.

"Klaus," she said, sounding flustered and caught off guard. "What are you doing here?" she asked, her eyes darting once over the sketchpad he was twisting in his grip, before zoning in on his suddenly blank face.

"Caroline," he managed to get out, fighting the urge to bolt. This guilt, this nervousness rushing into him, as he stood before her now, was unexpected to say the least.

She waited, tilting her head a little impatiently when he continued to merely stare wordlessly at her. "Yeah?" she prompted with typical Caroline patience.

His eyes bore deeply into hers, his stare intense and rooting; Caroline straightened up, her hand on the frame of the door as her brow now furrowed, unable to break eye contact.

"Forgive me," he blurted out fervently, not caring that it sounded all so absurd. This was Caroline, and the thought of someone so stunning being against him for the rest of eternity, more so than she already was, was an ominous reality he didn't want to face. "Forgive me, Caroline," he repeated. "I was…unbecoming with you, angry; I felt betrayed."

"For good reason," she admitted, her voice unexpectedly soft as she gazed back at him, her eyes gleaming with something he couldn't quite place. Embarrassment? Regret?

He moved forward, pushing the sketchpad into her hands so he could press his own against the sides of the doorframe. He angled his face closer to hers and Caroline visibly caught her breath, holding the sketchpad tightly to her chest as his eyes searched her face. "I fancy you," he reminded her, his words tumbling out of his mouth before he could stop, "and it's eating me up inside. Your smile fills my every thought. I can't stop myself from wanting to see you."

She didn't say anything. Her brow remained creased as she stared up at his face, probably waiting to see if he'd spew any more of this love stricken nonsense, but Klaus had exposed himself too much, shown a dangerous amount of vulnerability, so he just mirrored her furrowed brow.

"Klaus," she said curtly, straightening up as she attempted to gain some composure and relieve the tension that had followed his words, "stop. Just stop it. _Think_ about—about what you're _saying_," she grinned, her eyebrows now peaking up her forehead with disbelief, becoming overwhelmed by their close proximity and his words and whatever this was.

Klaus watched her closely, daring to hope that she'd say something that would put his heart at ease, or give him reason to walk away and never look back, but he just wanted to hold her, stroke her hair, like the night he had cured her of Tyler's bite.

Caroline huffed impatiently, fighting to find the words she wanted to say as she threw her hands around, "Be reasonable, _okay_? God, Klaus, you're a _hybrid_. No, you're _the_ hybrid. You're, like, a bajillion years old. You're a freakin' all-powerful, bajillion year old hybrid who can do _what_ever, _when_ever. So…" she fixed him with a look of the utmost frustration, "why _me? _Klaus," she shook her head, gesturing to herself, searching desperately for a logical explanation, "_why me?" _she repeated, but before he could answer, she added with a cross look, "And don't you dare say it's because I'm beautiful, because that's a really cliché and lame excuse that, honestly? I don't buy for a single second."

Her response was so _Caroline_ that he couldn't help the crooked grin that slid into place on his face.

She scoffed at the smile and turned her head away with a roll of her eyes. "And now you're laughing at me. Unbe_liev_able."

"I'm not laughing at you, lovey," he said, "I'm just—"

"Enjoying me, yeah, I got that the first time," Caroline told him peevishly. "Is that all you're going to say, then? You _enjoy_ me?"

"For now," he replied with a soft grin, elation once again nestling into his thoughts. Caroline's bantering would probably never cease to delight him. He really _did_ enjoy her. The anger, any lingering regret, had dissipated as soon as her own emotions surfaced.

"Well, great," she shot back sarcastically, pushing past him and making her way out onto the porch. He watched her stuff his sketchpad haphazardly into her bag without a second look as she headed for her parked car. "I have school," she tossed over her shoulder as she stomped across the pavement, "so feel free to get lost."

He shot past her to reach the car first, pulling open the door so he could wave her in cordially. "As you wish," he then said with a smirk. She gave him a leveling look before swinging herself into the seat behind the wheel.

"_Bye_," she said pointedly, and his smile widened as he clicked the door shut behind her. The engine revved to life and Caroline proceeded to put it in reverse, paying him no mind as he stood in the driveway and waved his fingers provokingly at her as she drove away.

Heaving out a huge breath of air, Caroline refused to allow herself a peek in the rear view mirror as she pulled down the street. She hadn't expected any of this; Klaus showing up on her door step, admitting… _whatever_ that was. She definitely didn't expect his desperate apology, so the guilt she already felt at his expense over Kol's daggering forced its way more deeply within her. Klaus was exposing her to the side of him that had been furiously buried beneath his Hybrid prowess for centuries, continuously catching her off guard with the compliments and the gifts. What did he expect her to think? She was forced to admit that inside she was torn, tortured with confusion over who Klaus really was, because he most certainly couldn't be both the psychotic killer and the man trying to tear down the wall he had been building around his heart for the better part of a millennium.

Could he?

Frustrated, she slapped her hands against the steering wheel. "_Seriously_?" she fumed, finding the whole situation discomfiting. She couldn't allow Klaus to get inside her head, because he _had_ to be up to something. There just wasn't any other logical reason for the most powerful supernatural being in the history of the world to show any interest in her; it all _had_ to be some diabolical master plan to get back at Elena and Stefan and Damon.

But if it wasn't…

"Get _real_, Caroline," she chided herself irately for allowing herself even a tiny ray of doubt, of giddiness over the idea of someone actually being truly, persistently, interested in _her_ and what _she_ wanted for her life.

Definitely a diabolical master plan. Absolutely, without a doubt.

Yet despite convincing herself of Klaus's highly probable ulterior motives, when she found herself flipping through his sketchpad later that night, Caroline's heart skipped a beat.

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**E/N: **You guys know the drill :D Love it, hate it, fave it, flame it :P IDK, just review it :3


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